The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Caladium plant, botanically known as Caladium×hortulanum, commercially referred to as a fancy leaf-type Caladium and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Party Punch’.
The objective of the Inventor's breeding program is to create new Caladium plants that have uniform plant habit, exceptional container and garden performance and attractive foliage coloration.
The new Caladium plant originated from a cross-pollination made by the Inventor in April, 2007, in Avon Park, Fla. of a proprietary selection of Caladium×hortulanum identified as code number WS-03-36, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with Caladium×hortulanum ‘Red Flash’, not patented, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Caladium plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a single plant within the progeny of the stated cross-pollination in a controlled outdoor nursery environment in Zolfo Springs, Fla. in September, 2008.
Asexual reproduction of the new Caladium plant by ‘chipping’ the tubers (cutting the tuber into segments, each segment containing an axillary bud and tuber cortical tissue) in a controlled outdoor nursery environment in Lake Placid, Fla. since April, 2009 has shown that the unique features of this new Caladium plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.